A Piece of Harmony Events 2022 Recap

I thought quite a bit about what I wanted to write for my annual recap before I finally felt ready to sit down and look back on 2022. I have been hearing from a lot of people… strangers, acquaintances, friends… how ready they were for 2022 to just be over and restart with a new year. For me personally, I kept thinking about all the amazing things that happened for me and my business, and I am counting my blessings even a couple weeks into 2023. Let’s take a jaunt down memory lane remember all the good, bad and the beautiful from the past year!

The first part of the year started off swimmingly as I found out that my business had been nominated for “Best Wedding Planning Firm” with the Idaho’s Best competition for the Northern Idaho region. This was a total surprise and something I was super pumped about. I did not end up winning for Idaho as a whole, however, I did win for the Northern Idaho category – proud business owner over here! More locally, A Piece of Harmony Events also took home second place in the Coeur d’Alene Press’s “Best Of” competition. I couldn’t be more grateful to everyone who voted for me or prouder of everything I have accomplished and all the people I have had to privilege to meet and work with! Every time a new review comes in from a past client or fellow vendor my heart skips with joy and, for some reason, my allergies start flaring up (if you get my drift).

As May rolled around and we were nearing that halfway point of the year, my event season was really starting to pick up, my daughter had just started daycare three days a week (and was thriving, by the way), and my husband and I decided to sell our first home and build a semi-custom home in a newer development closer to the school district where we ultimately wanted to be. Looking back, and even as we were going through it, this decision and the events that followed all happened so quickly! Within a matter of 3 weeks, we found this particular neighborhood where we wanted to build, secured our corner lot, locked down our design, and were preparing our then current house to sell. We could easily see where the trend was heading in the real estate market and knew we needed to act swiftly if we wanted to get the most out of our investment. But we also had over 6 months before our new home would be built and ready for move in. What a crazy time!

Anyone have a guess where we ended up? If you guessed moving in with parents, you win a virtual high five. We knew trying to find a short-term rental just wasn’t going to be ideal, and even though we ended up selling our house within 11 days for a really good profit, we still needed to save quite a bit of money. And since my parents watch Audrey on the weekends while I work anyways, this situation made the most sense. Graciously, they agreed and thus started the first of two moving processes. As this blog post comes out, 80% of our belongings are still in storage for another 2 weeks, but the light at the end of the tunnel is so close and we cannot wait to start turning this new house into a home!

As the summer was wrapping up, it really didn’t feel like my event season was slowing down. September came up on all of us quick and at the end of the month I executed one of the most challenging weddings of my career, very successfully I might add. I am extremely grateful for all the help from my assistants, the other vendors, and all the wonderful helping hands of the venue staff that went in to making that magical day happen. October came and went in a blur. The second weekend of the month I was down in Lewiston for a perfect 70-degree wedding day that went very well, while my wonderful husband was back home taking our precious doggy companion, Kaiser, in to have emergency surgery because his stomach had suddenly flipped. It was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life not being able to quickly drive home and comfort our first baby who has grown up with us and been such a big part of our lives. I did not sleep, and I cried most of that night alone in the hotel room. However, he is such a champ and has made a full recovery! Chris caught the signs very early, so the amount of gas that had built up in his stomach by the time they made it to the emergency vet was minimal. Likely another hour before treatment and Kaiser wouldn’t have been so lucky.

As we were nearing the end of the year, my business was already knee deep in 2023 planning mode, we were gearing up for Audrey’s second birthday and excited to be spending the holidays with family. For Thanksgiving we traveled down to Arizona, as we do every year, to visit the other set of grandparents and Audrey got to have lots of play time with her only cousin. Six days before Christmas our baby girl, who is not such a baby anymore, turned two and has grown more than we can believe this last year. She is slowly starting to understand the concept of Santa, and loves to unwrap gifts, so this year was definitely fun as she went around not only opening her gifts, but everyone else’s too. December also brought my 2022 wedding & event season to an end. I was grateful to start off my season in January with a very snowy wedding at Elkins Resort on Priest Lake and end my season in December with another very snowy (actively snowed all day in fact) wedding up at Elkins. Both weddings were extremely different, but absolutely perfect!

And now we are well on our way into 2023. No looking back now! Every night I count my blessings to be surrounded by family and so many amazing people, friends and clients. I am blessed to have overall mostly good things happening in our lives, and I cannot wait to see what adventures come our way this year! And I hope you all come along on the ride with me. Cheers to love, laughter, and happily ever after!